Supermarket Shames People With Embarrassing Plastic Bags To Fight Pollution

posted by Dave Basner -
Jun 12, 2019

It seems the world is addicted to single-use plastic bags. Every year, one trillion of them are used and most wind up in landfills. Some countries and some companies are working to lessen their output of the polluting plastic, either by imposing a charge of a few cents per bag or by banning them altogether. Well one grocery store in Canada found a very unique yet very effective way to get people to bring reusable bags.

East West Market in Vancouver still offers the single-use plastic bags for their customers, but instead of boasting the store's name or the phrase "Have A Nice Day" on them, the bags display very embarrassing messages like "The Colon Care Co-op," "Into The Weird Adult Video Emporium," and "Dr. Toews' Wart Ointment Wholesale," with the hope that people are discouraged from using them so they don't face public humiliation.

It's not the store's first effort to slow the use of the plastic bags. In September, they implemented a five cent charge per plastic bag. The store will continue to hand out the bags and levy the fee for them, but their hope is that no one takes them and instead, everyone brings their own reusable bags. At the very least, they want to move along the conversation about the dangers of plastic bags.